Roma Reveals 2018-2019 Away Kits

Usually when one starts a new job there’s an orientation process: you learn the lay of the land—where to park, which vending machines are the best, which manager is an asshole, do we dress down on Fridays, etc.—but inevitably a sizeable portion of that first day is dedicated towards company policies, particularly the sharing of proprietary information—you know, secrets the company doesn’t want going public for a variety of reasons.

Well, based on the manner in which he accidentally revealed Roma’s away shirts two days ago, it’s safe to say Javier Pastore slept through that meeting. But I guess when you pay €24.7 million for someone, you take the good with the bad. But, Javi, come on...loose lips sink ships.

What Pastore inadvertently revealed on Tuesday ultimately proved to be true, however.

See, when I first looked at that, I was like “oh my god, that totally looks like a wolf’s fur!” and then the rest of the CdT crew was all “Dude, shut the hell up, it’s just gray.” Well, he who laughs last laughs hardest, right?

This isn’t the first time Roma has gone gray for their away and/or third kits—I think we all remember the ‘print in grayscale’ look from a few years ago, the ones in which even the crest was grayed out—these, thankfully, did not go that far, preserving the crest in its original form and providing a further splash of color on the back.

My previous sarcasm aside (could you tell?), I actually kinda dig these, especially the back collar/shoulder area. If these look somewhat familiar, they should—it’s the same basic template we’ve seen on a lot of the Nike kits during the World Cup, Brazil in particular—but Roma will pair these with a slightly lighter shade of gray (if not white) for the socks.

One would imagine they’ll unveil the third kit sometime before the Champions League gets underway, but as we’ve already uncovered, they’re bright yellow.

So, what do we think, where would we rank these among Roma’s Nike line over the past several seasons?